Hi. I am new here and am grateful to have found a place to go.

• I am 50 years old and have been a school psychologist for 25 years (which is ironic considering the personal life I've only recently come to know is mine).
• I have been with my husband for 31 years, married for 24.
• We have two children; a girl turning 17 in a couple of months (11th grade), and a boy who recently turned 14 (8th grade).
• Less than 8 years ago my husband realized that the ADHD symptoms explained in the book Driven to Distraction outlined his entire life as a child right on into his adulthood.
• Our daughter was diagnosed with ADHD- inattentive type 7 years ago. Our son does not have ADHD.
• To my knowledge my husband has addressed his self-diagnosed ADHD using mindful approaches such as meditation and breathing. He engaged in individual therapy for an unknown period of time. It's also unknown whether his therapist specialized in ADHD, or even if he ever pursued a formal clinical diagnosis of ADHD at any point to date.
• Our daughter has not received any formal treatment, besides beginning a low dose of anxiety medication as of 6 weeks ago (the dosage was recently increased). She has also had a 504 Plan in school since 4th grade.

Late to the party, I finally read Driven to Distraction 6 years ago. However, as the non-ADHD partner, I spent the last 5 years reading other book genres in an effort to focus on my own self-improvement with the hope that it would also improve my relationship with my husband. It wasn't until a month ago that I read The ADHD Effect on Marriage, which resonated the most and allowed me to stumble onto this website and forum. Now, I am reading Married to Distraction and am looking forward to delving into some of the other Hallowell books.

Clearly for 30+ years I'm guilty of perpetuating the action, reaction, reaction cycle with my ADHD spouse.  As a non-ADHD parent of an ADHD teenage daughter, I find myself doing the same nagging and am having a hard time separating what parenting it is supposed to look like when her bedroom seems to be beyond what is typical for a teenager among many other aspects of disorganization, struggles with time-management, etc. The tip of the iceberg was tonight when she realized she didn't know where her school backpack was and couldn't remember where she had left it 6 days ago (the last day before winter break). So, I find myself here for support and even tips on how to do better as a mom and wife. Thank you.  

Hi - i decided to sign up here because it's Christmas and I'm at a loss. We have two young children (about to be 3 and 5) and it seems like all the strategies, and truth be told all of my life, now revolves around my partner (ADHD) and his needs. I just can't see how this works with children -- years before the diagnosis I told him that I was getting emotionally drained and wouldn't be able to keep going. And just like the book describes, I couldn't. I got really sick, I got depressed, I was angry and all the while trying to be the consistent (in all ways) parent to our children. I finally discovered that he might fit this diagnosis and thank god he was very accepting, got diagnosed, medicated and is finally, a year later, connected to a therapist he likes to and we have a couples therapist we both like. But I tried to cancel Christmas. It all felt so pretend so fake -- we have no sense of our finances, careers are shaky (his because he's discovered why he hates work so much and resigned, and mine because I started working part time in order to run the household and recover my health) and he wanted to leave it all to the last minute. Didn't want to take about traditions or values or other important things that children need and deserve.
I feel like all we do is have conversations to resolve conflict (specifically about his outbursts), fight in front of the kids, then I just keep trying to keep things together for them, and then I recover myself in order to do it all again that night or, at best, the next morning. As a part of our cycles, he'll pull up his socks and does amazing for a week or two, and I just relax because I deserve it too, then burns out and I'm on the marathon again. 
 There is nothing left in me to enjoy celebrating the season, we are cut off from friends, and all the normal ADHD marriage challenges PLUS the unique (right??) layer of challenges of trying to raise children who I hope to god will somehow grow to be somewhat well adjusted.
I don't know if this is the right place, it seems that most here don't have young kids. I need to be understood, and in need some serious help for my children's sake. I don't want to leave him, I love him and he's committed to working on things. He's a generous loving and fun human being. He's terrifically smart and he loves me. I need help. He keeps bringing up leaving for my and the children's sake. Help. Please.

I'm narrowing down things that are eating at me and they all seem to be related to the idea of an asymmetrical relationship. It occurred to me, that satiation is a key component in this equation since its the opposite of deprivation.

For me, this helps me see things more clearly as far as needs go and where or who I get them from. I also realized that in some areas of my relationship with my SO.....I've never been truly satiated in some areas specifically sex. Lol Not having any,  makes that an easy one to spot as an asymmetric component ( to the whole )  when it comes to this relationship between deprivation and satiation if you drew that on a graph! 

Anyway, making this connection just helped me make other areas easier to spot and apply that accordingly. Without question, these are the most troubling areas that carry the most weight and flavor my feelings and emotions one way or the other. 

This is a well known situation that we just navigated together without any conflict. I won't say there's an exact resolution on my end, but a compromise was made.

If memory serves me ( I'm not 100% sure )...but in one of his books, Dr Hallowell talked about this very relationship issue, about himself, so I know I'm not alone. This has to do with waiting to do things ( until later ) or doing them right away ( first thing ) and the order in which people tend to do things. In our case, I'm the wait until later guy, and my SO is the do it right now first before you do anything else.

This is actually a very good combination for me. By taking her lead, she's motivated me to stay on top of things and I've already developed much better habits by simply "doing it first".  And so many times, I feel the resistance from my "do it later" pattern trying to pull me back.  And 99% of the time, by fighting the "do it later" by "doing it now", it's been a positive change in improving a life long ADHD pattern....except in one specific case which is Sunday morning on my day off. ( or any day off for that matter ).

Like my mother, my SO, on any given day, within minutes of opening her eyes and her brain turns on, springs out of bed like a race horse and starts "doing something " immediately.  In my SO's case, I'll wake up many times with the sound of the washing machine and the vacuum cleaner ( both ) going at the time. I remember distinctly, the sound of cookware banging together and cupboards opening and closing when I was a kid. Nothing has changed, except now it's more likely the vacuum cleaner instead. 

On a non work day, this is not a problem. As I said, this is a really good motivator to get my butt up and moving. On the weekend however, this has become more of an issue....especially when ( with intention ) I allow myself to default to my old pattern which is:

Lay in bed for an hour and do nothing and/or  listen to music...while continuing to do nothing. Then after an hour or so, slowly get out of bed and wander aimlessly around the house, then wander outside and look around for a while,  then wander back into the kitchen and think about making coffee. I may start the coffee, but many times get side tracked on the first thing I see only to forget about the coffee, to finish something I started yesterday, but then remember the coffee...and come back to finish making it. I'll then putter around the house some more drinking coffee,  to then go back outside to look around ( again ) and listen to the birds and watch planes fly by overhead.....

only to come back inside and get back into bed with my phone, and scroll around for a while longer until I'm fully awake. At this moment, it when I first think about getting ready to do something productive, but first, having to lay around for a while longer and strategize my day using the "what do I feel like doing first" method to plan my day. By this time, a couple of hours has past which is okay...since I give myself until 12:00pm to actually start anything as a rule. Which means....my starting time is always "later" in the day....never "first". I have figured into my automatic calculator, that 5:00pm is roughly my deadline...and the closer I get to 5:00pm as a start time...the more pressure I feel, and the more motivated I get, to get going and do the "task(s)".

Once 12:00pm hits...it's officially afternoon! Morning is for getting ready and doing nothing...afternoon is for doing "work" and 5pm is quitting time approx.

So in this scenario....I'm off to the races ( the race horse ) at noon...and my SO is off the races the second her feet hit the floor in the morning....and it doesn't matter if it's the weekend of not. With her, it's consistently the same thing every day. Which is why she's so consistent!

Her pattern never changes...but mine does. This is where the problem begins. We both work full time so during the week...my pattern is the same as hers. I adopted her pattern and made it mine from the start. It's only when I change from her pattern to my old "default " weekend pattern when the problem starts... .as I've told her repeatedly: "it's the weekend, when I'm not working, getting up and starting immediately feels just like work....and with intention, and full awareness....is exactly what I'm trying NOT to do !"

And the one that really puts her over the edge is when I've gotten back into bed! Lol I can see the smoke starting to come out of her ears when I do that!  Needless to say, this really bothers her and she starts to get irritated and angry at times.

And we don't have kids with us, so that's not a concern.

more to come.